The RevenueCat Shipyard 2026 Winner Extracts Recipes from Video -So Does Pluck (and Then Some)

The RevenueCat Shipyard 2026 Creator Contest asked developers to build an app for a real creator’s audience in four weeks. Eitan Bernath -chef, food creator, 4M+ followers -wanted an app that helps people actually cook the recipes they save from social media. The winning app? Preplo, built by Razvan Statescu, which turns cooking video links into structured recipes.

When we saw the announcement, our first reaction was: hey, that’s what we do.

Our second reaction was: good. This validates the problem space we’ve been building in. When a contest backed by RevenueCat and judged by industry pros picks “extract recipes from cooking videos” as the winning concept, it tells us we’re building in the right direction.

Our third reaction was: let’s show people how the two apps actually compare, because we think the differences matter.

Note: Preplo hasn’t publicly launched yet. Everything below is based on the Shipyard contest demo and public materials. We’ll update this post when Preplo becomes available.

What Preplo showed off

Credit where it’s due. Preplo nailed the core concept in a tight timeframe:

• Paste a link, get a recipe. YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram. Clean, fast, simple.
• Recipe customization. Toggle a recipe to vegan, spicy, dairy-free, or low-carb.
• Guided cook mode. Full-screen step-by-step instructions with video timestamps.
• Cooking streaks. Gamification to build a cooking habit -cute idea that we haven’t seen elsewhere.
• Shopping lists with price estimates. Practical for planning grocery runs.

For a 4-week build, this is impressive execution. Preplo deserved the win.

Where Pluck goes further

We’ve been building Pluck longer than four weeks (considerably longer, if we’re being honest about the debugging), and that time shows up in the feature depth. Here’s what’s different.

We actually watch the video

This is the big one. Preplo extracts recipes primarily from video transcripts and descriptions -the text around and underneath the video. Pluck uses five AI extraction modes that process the video itself:

1. Video frame analysis -sees ingredients on screen, reads text overlays, catches measurements shown visually
2. Audio transcription -hears the creator speak ingredients and instructions, even over background music
3. OCR -reads on-screen text that might not appear in captions
4. Caption parsing -cross-references platform-generated and creator-uploaded subtitles
5. Metadata analysis -pulls from descriptions and tags

Why does this matter? Because a huge number of recipes live inside the video, not in the text around it. The TikTok creator who says “about a quarter cup of soy sauce” but only writes “BEST MARINADE” in the caption. The ASMR cooking video with zero narration where ingredients are only visible on the counter. The YouTube Shorts with text overlays that flash for 2 seconds and never appear in the description.

Transcript parsing gets the easy ones. Multi-modal extraction gets the rest.

Six source types, not three

Preplo handles YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Pluck handles all three, plus:

• Facebook -recipe groups, page posts, Reels
• Any food blog URL -ad-heavy blog posts become clean recipe cards
• Photos -cookbook pages, handwritten family recipes, screenshots

If you only discover recipes on YouTube and TikTok, three platforms might be enough. We’ve found that most people’s recipe sources are more scattered than they think -until they have an app that can handle everything, and suddenly they’re saving recipes from places they didn’t expect.

AI cooking assistant

Preplo offers preset recipe modifications. Pluck includes a conversational AI assistant that knows the specific recipe you’re making:

• “I don’t have heavy cream -what works in this soup?” → gets a substitution that accounts for the recipe’s texture and flavor
• “Can I make this in a Dutch oven instead of a skillet?” → gets advice specific to the dish
• “How do I know when the onions are caramelized enough?” → gets a contextual technique explanation

It’s the difference between a dropdown menu and having a knowledgeable friend in the kitchen. Both useful, but one adapts to what you’re actually doing.

Confidence scoring

Every Pluck extraction includes a confidence score. High confidence? Save it and start cooking. Lower confidence? The app flags which parts might need a quick review. We think this transparency matters -AI extraction is very good but not perfect, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone. When you see a yellow flag on a quantity, you know to double-check that the video really said “tablespoon” and not “teaspoon” of chili flakes. (Your taste buds will thank us.)

The honest trade-offs

We’re not going to pretend Pluck wins on everything. Preplo has a few things we don’t:

• Cooking streaks and gamification -we don’t have this, and it’s a clever engagement mechanic
• Shopping list price estimates -Pluck has grocery lists on our roadmap but doesn’t have cost estimates yet
• Lower price -Preplo premium is $4.99/mo vs Pluck’s $6.99/mo

If any of those are dealbreakers for you, Preplo is a solid choice. We’d rather you use any recipe extraction app than keep screenshotting TikToks and losing them forever.

What the Shipyard win means for the space

Here’s what we actually think is most interesting about Preplo’s win: it’s signal. When a well-known food creator with millions of followers says “the thing I want built for my audience is an app that turns cooking videos into recipes,” that’s market validation you can’t buy.

We’ve been building in this space because we believe recipe discovery has fundamentally shifted to social media video, and the tools haven’t caught up. Preplo’s Shipyard win says the same thing -from a completely different angle, through a different process, arrived at by different people.

The more apps that solve this problem, the more people realize it’s solvable. And when they start comparing, we’re confident about where Pluck lands.

Try them both (when you can)

When Preplo launches, the best way to evaluate will be to extract the same recipe in both apps. We’d suggest picking a TikTok where the creator speaks the recipe but doesn’t write it down. That’s where the extraction approach difference should show up most clearly.

In the meantime, you can try Pluck right now. Share a TikTok recipe, an Instagram Reel, a YouTube cooking video, a Facebook group post, a food blog, or even a photo of a cookbook page. See what multi-modal extraction actually looks like.

Read the full Pluck vs Preplo comparison →

See how Pluck’s 5 extraction modes work →

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Pluck is available on iOS and Android -get it on Google Play. Also on iOS.